On getting exactly what I wanted and feeling terrified

I saw Brandon from HONY just down the block from where I live.

I was super excited, and approached him asking if I could get a picture of him. He was so nice, and agreed readily. I snapped him taking a picture of a young man in a wheelchair. He then asked me if he could take my picture. OF COURSE I agreed, anyone who knows me knows I love I having my picture taken.

After he took a few shots, he asked me “So what’s your story?”

I told him about my sizeism project, my blog, and the picture on tumblr that got a lot more attention than I thought it would. He said he was really interested, wanted to put me up on the blog, and to email him as soon as I got home with all my info. I did just that.

I expected him to post the CLOTHED picture of me, and link to my blog, so anyone who was interested could check it out.

So needless to say I was a little surprised when I saw my half-naked self on Facebook, getting thousands of likes every minute.

My first instinct was to burst into tears. It’s what I do when I’m too overwhelmed and don’t know how to feel. A million thoughts raced through my brain - but the most prominent one was

“This is exactly the exposure you wanted to spread the message of size acceptance. This is the perfect venue for you to share your story, and you should be honored.”

Then why did I feel like utter shit?

I knew that thousands of people were looking at my body. I knew thousands were judging me.

Still, I knew more were supporting me, sharing kind words, and getting something from what I wrote.

IT’S WAYYYYY EASIER, however, to focus on the smaller percentage of negative assholes rather than the overwhelming love.

I panicked. I emailed Brandon, asking him to please post the other picture with a little more of what I had to say, as I thought maybe that would stop some of the trolls. I didn’t know how to feel. Here I was, this woman speaking about loving yourself and accepting who you are, suddenly absolutely devastated because some random people I don’t know were saying nasty things about me on the internet.

Brandon was amazing. He offered advice, his support, and told me if I ever changed my mind he would delete the picture.

I took a few hours with myself to sit and think and absorb what was happening. Should I tell him to delete it? Should I delete my blog? Should I persevere and leave it up? 

Finally, I decided to leave it. I know what I am trying to do, which is help young women struggling with their body image and expose the hypocrisy and cruelty that is sizeism, is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT whatever feelings I may have about myself.

I didn’t do this for attention or sympathy. I have people in my real life who help me with anything I need, I don’t need to look to strangers for that. 

I am doing what I’m doing in the hopes I can make a difference in a world that has so much cruelty.

But also know that I am human. I have my bad days. Maybe I will change my mind and decide I don’t want to be in the public eye, and everyone will forget about me in about 2 seconds.

But I hope I continue to gain strength from this experience, and get the chance to tell my story at a widespread level.

And I hope you know that to all who have been supportive, I love you.

Since its founding in 1989, DKNY has been inspired by and incorporated authentic New York into its imagery. For our Spring 2013 store window visuals we decided to celebrate the city that is in our name by showcasing “Only in NYC” images. We have immense respect for Brandon Stanton aka Humans of New York and approached him to work with us on this visual program. He declined to participate in the project. 

For the Spring 2013 windows program, we licensed and paid for photos from established photography service providers. However, it appears that inadvertently the store in Bangkok used an internal mock up containing some of Mr. Stanton’s images that was intended to merely show the direction of the spring visual program. We apologize for this error and are working to ensure that only the approved artwork is used. 

DKNY has always supported the arts and we deeply regret this mistake. Accordingly, we are making a charitable donation of $25,000 to the YMCA in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn in Mr. Stanton’s name.